198: The films of Tarkovsky – Andrei Rublev -the painter, Solaris – written by Stanislaw Lem, Stalker – based on a work by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and Nostalghia – based on the life of composer Maxim Berezovsky.

199: He created a form of verse and supposedly wrote the first one on the guy in the painting. Who / What?

196: General Anthony McAuliffe who sent a message to the German just saying “Nuts!” when asked to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge and a campaign by fans of the TV series Jericho who sent in tons of peanuts to CBS executives after the show was cancelled at the end of season one. The show finale had made a reference to the famous “Nuts!” incident. The show was revived and given a proper send off at the end of season two.

194: Christopher Dorling and Peter Kindersley who started DK. In 1999 DK printed 18 million Star Wars books but sold less than half of them, leaving the company with crippling debt. As a direct result, DK was taken over the following year by the Pearson PLC media company, and made part of Penguin Group, which also owns the Penguin Books label.

193: Colleridge, while writing Kublai Khan was interrupted by a “man from Porlock”. In Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, the “man from Porlock” is the main protagonist who saves the world by time-travelling from the present day to distract Coleridge from properly remembering his dream.